Mercy Medical Center has earned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR certification for the seventh consecutive year. Only three other hospitals in the United States have earned the ENERGY STAR certification for seven consecutive years. The certification signifies that Mercy’s main hospital campus in Canton, Ohio, performs in the top 25 percent of similar facilities nationwide for energy efficiency and meets strict energy efficiency performance levels set by the EPA.

“For Mercy, ‘going green’ is not just about lowering costs, it’s about doing the right thing,” said Tom Cecconi, president and CEO of Mercy Medical Center. “As a Catholic health care organization with a mission to provide quality, compassionate care, we embrace and strive to exemplify the teachings of Pope Francis on ecological conversion in his recent encyclical letter, Laudato Si, which says, ‘Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us. The issue is one which dramatically affects us, for it has to do with the ultimate meaning of our earthly sojourn.’”

In addition to extensive energy-conservation programs, Mercy has implemented a broad range of initiatives that include:

Hospital-wide recycling

Water conservation

Reduction of pharmaceutical waste

Events for employees and the community, like medication take backs, electronic recycling and more

Collaborative efforts with business and community partners that share Mercy’s ecological priorities

Commercial buildings that earn ENERGY STAR certification use an average of 35 percent less energy than typical buildings and also release 35 percent less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Nick Bagnolo, vice president of construction & facilities for the Sisters of Charity Health System, said the hospital’s energy-conservation efforts began in the early 1990s when the Mercy Surgery Center was constructed.

“At the time, we faced a number of problems with our cooling plant, emergency generator capacity and electrical distribution capacity,” Bagnolo said. “As we mapped out a plan for fixing those problems, we also saw an opportunity to become more energy efficient going forward. This led to ongoing expansion of our building automation system, real-time management of electric demand, elimination of most incandescent bulbs and much more.”

The EPA introduced ENERGY STAR in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency. Today, the ENERGY STAR label can be found on more than 65 different kinds of products, 1.4 million new homes, and 20,000 commercial buildings and industrial plants that meet strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the EPA. Over the past 20 years, American families and businesses have saved more than $230 billion on utility bills and prevented more than 1.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions with help from ENERGY STAR.

Mercy Medical Center is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System.

About Us

From its Cleveland headquarters, the Sisters of Charity Health System provides oversight, leadership and strategic direction to more than 20 organizations responding to community needs in Canton and Cleveland, Ohio, and South Carolina.